burnard inclusive pedagogies

7/31/2019 Burnard Inclusive Pedagogies

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TITLE: Inclusive pedagogies in music education: a comparative study of music

teachers perspectives from four countries

ABSTRACTAmongst the many challenges for classroom music practitioners is developinginclusive pedagogies which celebrate difference, promote inclusive learning

experiences and overcomes learner disaffection in reaching the young people most atrisk of exclusion, topics which are globally receiving considerable public exposure

and attention. The findings reported in this article form part of a wider comparative

research project investigating the pedagogies of music teachers working in

challenging contexts. This article highlights one strand of the study involving teacher

perspectives from accounts of pedagogy documented through interviews and

observations. The complex ways in which teachers achieve inclusion in their music

classrooms is best understood in connection with the interplay of policies, structures,

culture and values specific to schools, from what is country specific or culture bound,and how the particular school serves young people on the margins of society in trying

to create an environment where students can succeed musically. Accounts offered byfour teachers range from particular teacher and school strategies to management

practices which promote pupil-pupil relations in and outside the classroom, to the way

the school connects with its musical community. We conclude with what we can

learn, as practitioners and researchers, from comparative accounts of pedagogy.

KEYWORDS: comparative research, inclusion, music teaching and learning,

pedagogy, values and teaching strategies

INTRODUCTION

One of the impacts of globalisation is that many countries are faced with similar

societal changes, most of which manifest as challenges to the classroom in terms of

pedagogy, values, teaching strategies. Issues of achievement, social equality, learner

disaffection, teacher stance and teaching strategies, now receive considerable public

exposure and attention. In this paper, we prefigure just two elements, which provide

the specific focus for informed international educational comparison, as the

overarching pedagogical challenges of engagement (i.e. learning disaffection and

disruptive behaviour) and achievement.

It is commonly agreed that schools do not meet the needs of all children and that

societal challenges make unreasonable expectations of schools to equalise

achievements given that education cannot compensate for society (See for example:

MacBeath, et al, 2007; Garner, 1993, Bernstein, 1970). There is, however, explicit

acknowledgement that music plays a crucial role in preventing social exclusion since


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it has the capacity for functioning as aim and means when creating an effective

learning environment in multicultural schools (See for example: (Bamford, 2006;

Bauer, 2005; Beck, 1993; Bittman, Berk, Felten, Westengard, & al, 2001; Dillon,

2006; Fiske, 2000; Hallam, 2001). Music teachers working with disaffected learners,

in areas where there is risk of social exclusion, are confronted with difficulties: most

of them have not been professionally trained for the present situation and lack

materials, methods and support for reflection. But they are also confronted with

possibilities: creative teachers, understanding the potential of music as a unifying

force, can use their diverse context to develop teaching methods with relevance for all

learning contexts. We learn from the literature that the crucial element here is that

when teachers discuss the means of improving difficult behaviour, they place

themselves centrally in the picture, attributing responsibility for improvement to

themselves (Watkins et al, 2007).

The societal changes caused by the globalisation offer challenges to music teachers in

the classroom, but they also offer a chance to critical examine pedagogy, values and

teaching strategies. Some of the questions that the music teachers might raise are:

Do we effectively prepare future music teachers for what they are going tomeet?

What can we learn from teachers who have learnt to cope well with thechallenges of music teaching?

Whose values are most important? Can we overcome the notion of us andthem? Do we want to learn about the other or from the other? Do we

promote individual rights or group rights? If we open the door to the other

are we ready to change our own lives?

How do we encourage motivation if like in the Swedish case 47% of thestudents in the classroom are not likely to qualify for further studies the

motivation for school is very low, even if the subject is music. What ismeaningful?

What are the roles of the parents? How are the students learning within and outside school? What is the teachers relationship to policy if the governing documents are not

applicable or relevant to practice?

This article which arises from a larger study which began with collaborative

discussions at the International Society for Music Education (ISME) Conference in

Tenerife, 2004 and included Bo Wah Leung (Hong Kong) and Frits Evelein (The

Netherlands) in a first stage sets out to describe and compare the practices of


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teachers working in challenging contexts. In so doing, the project focused on the

following research questions, coupling as the aims of this paper, which are:

i. To describe what constitutes pedagogies of inclusion as identified by fourdifferent teachers;

ii. To compare what teachers say and do as they encounter ways ofconceiving and coping with challenging classrooms in different countries;

and iii. to identify and reflect on the challenges and benefits of

comparative research for music education

DEFINING INCLUSION AND THE POLICY CONTEXT COMPARED

ACROSS COUNTRIES

We began the present study with politically very different starting points. In England,

the inclusion agenda drives policy and practice. In Sweden, inclusion is construed in

terms of the policy of compulsory schooling (A school for all). In Australia, the

challenging questions frame the issue of advocacy. In contrast, Spain builds policy

around school drop out and truancy issues. In practice, what inclusion looks like in

schools internationally speaking, goes beyond the simple fact of being allowed to

participate (i.e. not being excluded).

One theoretical starting point is offered by Frasers (1997) notion of recognition

where remedies to injustices that are of a cultural or symbolic nature are rooted in

social patterns of representation, interpretation and communication. The examples of

these injustices include:

Cultural domination (being subjected to patterns of interpretation andcommunication that are associated with another culture and are alien and/or

hostile to ones own);

Non-recognition (being rendered invisible by means of the authoritativerepresentational, communicative and interpretative practices of ones culture);

Disrespect (being routinely maligned or disparaged in stereotypic publiccultural representation and/or everyday life interactions).

(Fraser, 1997:14)


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hidden assumptions that underpin what we do (and do well) in our classrooms.

Thirdly, it offers alternatives to the ways in which we have always done things.

We are being told that comparing how different countries face common challenges

can provide the evidence to make the most effective policies to resolve these issues in

the UK (ESRC, 2007, p. 13). With the increasing demand for international

comparisons, we felt encouraged, as a comparative research team of music

researchers, to conduct international research.

THE LOCAL CONTEXTS: A GLIMPSE OF NATIONAL, SCHOOL AND

TEACHER ISSUES FROM THE FOUR CASES

Case studies were carried out in each of the participant countries, in secondary

schools placed in regional locations that presented social problems such as poor socio-

economic background, social deprivation, or high numbers of students from ethnic

minority groups. The Swedish, Spanish, Australian and English selected schools

presented different characteristics:

In Sweden

In Sweden the implementation of grundskolan (compulsory school), 1962, marks

the beginning of a school for all, meant to be a meeting place for all children in

society. This was a central political goal, which has had broad support in society and

constitutes a unique system in the international perspective. However, the great

satisfaction of having created a common school for all children, has been followed by

critical questions: Was it a possibility to all? How did it work as a place for learning

and development for children and youngsters with different background

characteristics? What is the importance of class, gender and ethnicity in this context?

A critical review on Swedish research on the modern school for everyone, covering

the last three decades shows that most research seldom questions the concepts class,

gender and ethnicity. Often school, teaching, subjects, activities, leadership, teacher

and student are treated as neutral concepts. Moreover, different research discourses

from different periods decides the focus, content and choice of method. The report

argues that this neutral position is a threat to qualitative understanding of a school for

all, and asks for research on content and didactics and what conceptions of assignment


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and students that influence or control the teachers work. Three problematic fields are

discussed:

1. We have a school created for other conditions than the current.

2. The teacher is too invisible as a bearer of culture and values.

3. Individuals (not systems) are the focus of research.

The report also states that it is the researchers that decide what is regarded as relevant

questions. A widening of the group of researchers could constitute a force for

development, and lead to new questions being asked and invisible fields made

perceptible (Tallberg Broman et al, 2002).

In the current national governing document for school music in Sweden, the emphasis

is on making music together as a basis for experience and learning, and music as a

force for individual development. The Swedish music teacher featured in this study

works at a school where 25 languages and 35 countries are represented. In his

classroom the Muslim girls play popular music in the bands, just as everyone else.

Focus is on cooperation and collaborative teaching.

In Spain

Secondary music in Spain is a compulsory subject shaped by a concept based

curriculum and a historical approach. In the studied school, a group of students that

failed all other subjects was highly motivated by a different subject narrative, which

consisted in the preparation of concerts where each class acted as an orchestra, in an

approach that the teacher called ;music for all and that fitted with the local wind band

culture.

In an effort to promote social inclusion according to the economic development that

was favoured by the return of democracy in 1978 and the incorporation of Spain to

the European Union in 1986, the 1990 reform raised the age of compulsory education

from 14 to 16 years old. Seventeen years later, however, a 30 percent of the students

drop out (Ministerio de Educacin y Ciencia, 2006) and many of those that nominally

get their certificate of compulsory secondary education do not undertake any further

professional training. These figures show that despite official intentions, schooling is


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still not doing enough to help a great part of Spanish young people to find a place in

society. Although economic prosperity hides the situation, an increase in conflicts in

secondary schools is calling the attention of the public: absenteeism (Ru, 2003),

bullying (Defensor del Pueblo, 2000, 2006), and failure (Marchesi, 2003). Secondary

teachers, insufficiently trained in programs designed 40 years ago, find it difficult to

cope with nowadays challenges.

Within this context, a case study was conducted to understand how a music teacher

managed to motivate a group of disaffected learners that failed all other subjects and

displayed violent behaviours, most of whom would drop out at the end of that school

year or the following. Secondary music in Spain is a compulsory subject shaped by a

concept based curriculum and a musicological approach, and schools do not provide

instrumental tuition. In the observed school, a different subject narrative was highly

appreciated both by the students and by the community: the preparation of concerts

with chromatic bar tone instruments, with each class acting as an orchestra.

In Australia

In Australia, social inclusion is not directly addressed in state and national policy

documents but is advanced by policy documents as a point of advocacy. Secondary

music whilst diversely interpreted in each state music is based upon an national

curriculum statement that suggests: creating, making and presenting music in past and

present contexts form the basis of programmes. The 2006 national review of music

education notes a difficulty in identifying schools catering specifically for cultural

diversity in their music programmes. there is however a significant movement in

community health- called the Health Promoting Schools program (Lemerle &

Stewart, 2004) which involves the creation of community hubs and promotes personal

and community resilience as an approach to increasing social inclusion, health and

well being. Several research sites using this social intervention have involved music

making as a means for the development of community and social change (Dillon,

2005; Dillon & Stewart, 2006). The case study school represents a context where the

music teacher is engaging with cultural diversity through a creative contemporary

music program that forges a relationship with the wider community and has a

documented effect on social inclusion. Contemporary music is defined in this context

as being a syncretic music drawn from a blend of the students sub cultural musical


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values. This means that the musical styles used in classrooms come from a variety of

cultural interpretations of popular music. It should be noted here that popular music is

the medium of creative interaction and does provide common ground for students

(Dillon, 2007a, 2007b). This style of music is also a part of how the South Sea

Islander and Indigenous communities value and define their identity. Music is seen as

a critical factor in the formation of identity and of personal expression in these

communities. The approach here is about giving students a means of their own

expression in sound rather than colonising them through a construction of what

music is based upon a European framework. This extends even to popular music

where what the teacher values as popular music may differ significantly from that of

the students or even as occurs in Indigenous communities where the Elders valuing of

Country music and the youths use of Hip-Hop may be in tension (Dillon, 2007a).

The case study school context itself is complex. Alongside low socio economic

factors that are common to most, are tribal relationships between South sea Islander

groups such as Samoan, Tongan and Maori groups from New Zealand there are also

Indigenous Aboriginal groups both local to the area and from other parts of the state

and Vietnamese immigrants. Forming a relationship with communities here comes by

way of invitation from church leaders and elders in the community and the music

teacher here has been extended these invitations through his relationships with

students. School disengagement and low attendance is commonplace. Students are

generally defined as being at risk - youth who are at a substantially higher risk for

negative outcomes such as substance abuse, teenage pregnancy, crime, violence, and

academic underachievement due to family, community, social, political, physical and

economic conditions.

Three years ago a program called Bringing New Styles was implemented in

collaboration with the city council, local and national music retail organisations who

supplied instruments and an innovative community music provider called CreActives.

Whilst evaluation of this program was unable to statistically support positive

outcomes qualitative progress was observed (Dillon, 2007a). This programme was

documented by a number of means (Baker, 2004; Dillon, 2004; Dillon et al., 2004;

McNelliey, 2006; Spirovski, 2005) and has shown enough promise to have funding

continue and further support by the community and the partners. The current music


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teacher came to the school in year two of the program in only his second year of

teaching. He has suggested his turning point came when he stopped trying to achieve

the state curriculum outcomes and focused on making music with the students that

they valued (personal commmunication: Noah 13/12/06). It was this that led to his

more inclusive relationship with the community and the basis of inclusive outcomes.

What is significant about this case is firstly how music was used in the process of

forging relationships with students and communities and secondly how the teachers

shift in focus from an outcomes based music pedagogical approach to a meaningful

engagement model affected a change in social relations and a perception of a positive

affect.

In England

In England, social inclusion has become well established as a terminology

accompanying an array of strategies and initiatives designed to improve the life

chances of disadvantaged groups, a characteristic of the selected comprehensive

secondary school. The cause of disaffection and disengagement in learning by young

people has been the object of much research (Kinder & Harland, 2004; Harland et al,

2000; Kinder & Wilkin, 1998).

The meaning of social inclusion can be summarised as including notions of children

with Special Education Needs (SEN) in mainstream schools, to children with SEN

accessing mainstream curriculum with social and emotional integration. It can refer to

all children achieving and participating despite challenges stemming from poverty,

class, race, religion, linguistic and cultural heritage or gender. It can also refer to all

children, parents and the community equally achieving and participating in lifelong

learning in many forms in and out of school and college (Topping and Malongey,

2005).

The context for discussion and much change has been the government initiative

Every Child Matters agenda (http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/) which seeks to

explore the well-being of children and young people from birth to age 10. The

Governments aim is for every child, whatever their background or their

circumstances, to have the support they need to: be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and

achieve, make a positive contribution and achieve economic well-being. This means


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that the organisations involved with providing services to children from hospitals

and schools, to police and voluntary groups have teamed up in new ways, sharing

information and working together, to protect children and young people from harm

and help them achieve what they want in life.

The music teacher, a learning mentor who is a highly skilled, charismatic and

experienced musician, featured in this case provides clear opportunities for pupil

participation in the decision making process and provided a positive attitude about

the learning abilities of all his pupils. He develops an inclusive approach to teaching

music. He is known for engaging and capturing the imagination and commitment of a

group of young people who have very fragmented and difficult personal

circumstances. He is responsible for transforming the experiences of school of many

pupils who are seen as disruptive and disaffected learners who would usually be

statemented, usually excluded, as having special needs by others. He offered musical

and emotional support to all and developed good working relationships (i.e.

partnerships) between his pupils, their parents (whose vulnerability was, for many

parents, often pronounced) and the interagencies working within and outside the

school. He seems to makes it work. He seems to be able to motivate the most

difficult students differently in relation to music. He appears to meet the needs of

the learner. Disaffected and bored learners in other classrooms are engaged in his.

How does he persuade them to participate fully? Is it through musical and creative

activities which confers on them an alternative status or that the tasks initiate a certain

kind of social and musical engagement? These are impressive claims. The picture is a

complex one. How can we explain it?

Contextual commonalities

Common to each context were teachers having to cope with disenfranchised learners.

In a Swedish context the question was raised, "how to handle a group of children with

25 different mother tongues?" "How to move from majority culture to minority, from

thinking us and them?" In Australia, a new question is being raised about music as a

means of creating common ground between cultures and also seeking to decolonise

European culture and how teacher might move between multi-cultural, inter-cultural

and urban indigenous experiences and values in the classroom and ideologically

(Dillon, 2007a, 2007b). This is a difficult task when we consider the musical


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adaptability of South Sea Islanders. Indigenous students for example can be

intimidated by this ease and success and do not participate. So, there are intricacies

and complexities at every turn in this context.

METHODOLOGY AND METHODS

This was a small-scale study which involved inter-perspectival collaboration between

four university based researchers. The methodology was qualitative and the design

principle was multiple-case study. Whilst case reporting recognises the complexity

and embeddedness of social contexts, the kind ofgeneralisation offered is from case-

bound features of the instance to a multiplicity of classes (e.g. social inclusion by one

teacher in one school may tell us about social inclusion by other teachers in other

schools). Theoretically informed by an interpretivist research paradigm, this style of

educational case study, acknowledges the culturally embedded nature of teaching and

learning.

Data collection involved classroom observation and indepth individual teacher and

learner interviews (the latter participants perspectives are not a focus of this paper).

The field notes included detailed depictions of the class activities, conversations, non-

verbal and musical events and classroom climate features, Each individual teacher

was interviewed up to four times, using a flexible interview protocol. During the

interviews, the participants were asked exploratory questions regarding their beliefs

about teaching and learning music, their perceptions of the kind of classroom

environment (or context) created by teachers as part of a learner inclusive approach

and the teachers strategies used to translate learning experiences into engagement

and achievement for young people for whom relevance is most effectively

demonstrated.

Interviews were also conducted using video-stimulated reviews (VSR) of class music

lessons. Dialogic video viewing, a powerful tool for educational research and

reflection on teaching and learning, involves the review of videotaped lessons by the

participants (Walker, 2002; Tripp, 1993). Points in the lesson are identified as

significant or key moments or episodes with respect to the focus of a particular study

(see Burnard, 2004, for research example of pupil-teacher VDR). Categories of

description are derived from the occurrences and phases in the lessons which flag up


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issues of inclusiveness. Each teachers classroom under study, from which this

research draws its data, involved varying periods ranging from a 3-month period (in

the UK) to a 12-month period (in Sweden).

In this study, an adapted grounded theory approach to analysis was adopted in order

to identify the major elements of the pedagogy that seemed to shape the teachers

practice under study and to describe how these elements, as central and pervasive

factors, appeared to be related to the students engagement in classroom activities. As

per Glasers (1978, 1992) constant comparative approach in combination with

Charmazs (1995) recommendation for coding significant events which include

positive events and relived negative events led to emergent categories, the analysis

procedure involved developing highly contextualised descriptors to systematically

illustrate the content of the data. Through repeated scrutiny of the initial list of codes,

and by merging descriptors, a set of categories emerged from the interviewees claims

which were triangulated with what was observed in the classroom environment.

This study provides detailed empirical documentation (i.e. accounts), at the classroom

level, of teacher pedagogies of inclusion in four particular settings where effective

teaching is identified as the dynamic that shapes, gives meaning and explains the fit

between pedagogy and the positive learning experiences of those being taught

(Alexander, 2000). Here, the comparative education context provides a way forward

to inform and theorise across these studies of teachers pedagogies of inclusion.

Broadfoot et al (1999) confirms this with her seminal comparative studies of teachers,

teaching and assessment in England and France which have real-world applications

and significance.

Therefore, the aims of the study were:


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i. To compare how social inclusion in music education in differentcountries is identified and characterised;

ii. To compare specific themes concerned with what teachers say and do asthey encounter same, similar and different ways of conceiving and coping

with social inclusion in music education in different cultures.

LESSONS FROM FOUR INCLUSIVE PEDAGOGIES

The main themes reported next concern the kinds of pupil understanding and learning

each of these teachers appear to promote or encourage and the challenges they have

overcome and deal with daily in their classrooms. By presenting the three core valuesand meanings which embody each teachers practice, and their voiced accounts, we

hope to share some aspects of the dynamics manifested in the classroom practices of

music teachers working in challenging contexts.

(i) Insights from a teacher in Sweden

The Swedish teacher has a strong commitment to teach music, but it is not the

music per se that has first priority: it is more a tool to learn all the other. Because

I believe that a person that is able to manage the social interplay of our world will

survive, no matter if he or she lacks a mark in one or two school subjects. However,

he wants them to learn how to play together, that is where the joy of music is. Most

of the time in the classroom is spent making music, music theory is taught through the

instruments. Music history is connected to popular music: if they can see how

much of the new music that is produced only to selland the youth culture is more or

less built on music, and it is important to know your background to feel secure in your

own identity. The national guiding documents are important to the teacher.

The Swedish teacher wants his students to learn the value of risk taking, that is, I

want them to learn that it is OK to do wrong, that is how you develop, they should

learn social interaction, to know how to communicate with different kinds of persons,

personal responsibility. To learn that everybody CAN, everyone is not capable to

perform with the same standards but to give up, no, that is not aloud in my classes.

It is almost like a mantra repeated in all actions and planning of the lessons: engage,


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you have to act together, you are responsible for your own teaching. The teacher

leaves a lot of space to the students to learn from each other. He also collaborates and

builds teams with other teachers at the school. My colleagues are linked together in

most questions and actions. He stresses that the working climate at the school is very

important: If I ever should hesitate to take a new job at another problematic

school, it would not be because of the students, but because the staff seems

disrupted.

(ii) Insights from a teacher in Spain

Against a common trend in Spanish music education, the teacher believed that making

music only in the classroom was not enough. He organized concerts where each class

acted as an orchestra in an approach he called music for all. To this aim, he

sequenced effectively the development of rhythmic and melodic reading skills as a

way to foster an autonomous musical learning and arranged classical, pop and film

music to be performed with chromatic bar tone instruments. The pupils chose the

repertoire among the arrangements proposed by the teacher, and also the voice they

would play, rotating roles (melody, accompaniment, etc.).

The teacher believed that the students were capable of making quality music with

just two 50 weekly sessions, and that complex arrangements were better to cope with

the diversity of musical abilities and interests among adolescents. The approach was

successful and the subject narrative was incorporated by the school culture. It was

praised by the students, by other teachers and by the school administrators: the

associate-headteacher said that ...some children that would drop out but are obliged

to stay until they are sixteen, and only get enthusiastic with certain things. Music is

one of them. Watching themselves in the concert, doing it well, being applauded... is a

great way of motivation for them. Interestingly, even disaffected learners that were

failing all subjects praised the subject narrative and worked hard to rehearse for the

concerts, in an effort to be included in the school culture. When you enter this

classroom, you enter the Berlin Philharmoniker, said the teacher.

The learning situations were musically authentic: the Head of Studies considered that

the pupils were ...the musicians and he is conducting... and ...they are all doing

the same so that the result be good... In this way, instead of the conflictive and


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sometimes violent attitudes a group of disaffected learners was displaying in all other

subjects, in music they were highly motivated and attained self-regulation.


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(iii) Insights from a teacher in Australia

This teacher employs an inclusive approach where he observes how music is

expressive to the students and what it means to his students, especially in the light of

their non achievement in academic environments. He provides an experience that

builds on their natural aesthetic response to make music. He is passionately

committed to providing musical experiences that will transform students and

provide positive frameworks for making music. Consideration of cultural difference:

[At his School there ]is a reticence for anything that smacks of effort,

thoughtfulness and hard work in terms of schooling not necessarily in music and in

many other subject areas. So its a challenging environment to strike that balance. A

lot of my music students are Polynesian and part of Polynesian culture is an aural

tradition of music where nothing is written down they just know it. An embodied

pedgagogy. So I show them and let them watch my hand or the voicings on the piano

rather than write it down for them. That would make more sense to them. Its visual

and aural.

Observing intrinsic motivated activity: I open up the music classroom at lunchtime

and I let them jam. And they just play. They play what their cousins have taught them,

they play what they play at church or what they are listening to. And thats where I

can see where the gun musicians are and see that kind of thing. Because there they

dont have to do it. They are there because they want to there are no boundaries

around it no assessment, Discovery learning: I try to be a facilitator they have an

opportunity in my classroom to make discoveries and the things I have planned and

the activities I have planned for them aid journey of discovery for them and I expect

them to be able to pick up on that themselves. I try to encourage self-direction and

that kind of innate sense of discovery that kids have. Putting things in their way that

theyll want to pick up. Group work. I like to encourage small group work where

the more competent musicians can make sure its a mixed group where less competent

musicians can copy the more competent musicians Again some dont have the

listening skills but I really like to encourage small groups where its less

confrontational, more comfortable in a small group than playing out in front of the

class.


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(iv) Insights from a teacher in England

Inclusive learners require inclusive teachers of music. This teacher does not feel

alone nor feels it is a single struggle to meet the needs of his pupils. For this teacher,

teaching is not recognised as being a lonely or alternative (poor) profession. He has a

passionate ideological commitment to music, to teaching music and musical

learning. I believe that young people possess their own unique theories,

interpretations and questions, and that they are co-protaganists in their knowledge-

building processes. This means that the most important verb in my practice is not to

talk, to explain, to transmit, but to listen.

This teacher employs a listening pedagogy. When you are listening to kids who have

given up, who dont find school relevant let alone meaningful, who are more often

removed from lessons by teachers for one reason or another, much of the quality of

what you are hearing is your effect on them. Your attention, your listening, is that

important. Developing a sense of community and belong among individuals;

modelling respect, I am a teacher who these pupils look up to and respect because

they know I actually listen to what theyve got to say. Not all teachers do this that

well. . . . I am not a teacher who yells at pupils. I dont separate between kids and I

think I share the same beliefs as them. . . I work at being culturally sensitive to the

ways they engage with music in and out of school.. . . . I dont make up excuses for

them. They are able to learn, to do things and learn as a community. This teacher

takes every opportunity to educate his pupils about the experiences of being part of

several communities, race, gender and religion. This is a classroom where musical

prejudices are not allowed. He does this through what he calls musical

socialisationand is supposed to be a smaller example of the wider world.

So, what kinds of inclusive pedagogies do these teachers appear to promote and

encourage? What can teachers tell us about socially inclusive practices in music

education? What is the significance of this for the meaning of music education

philosophy in an increasingly globalized world? What can we learn from cross

cultural understanding among music educators while also noting important national,

regional, or cultural differences in the ways they approach and make sense of music

education practice.


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COMMONALITIES IN PEDAGOGIES OF INCLUSION

What commonalities did we find in the relations between the different cultural and

institutional contexts and these pedagogies of inclusion? Students were motivated in

Music but not in other subjects in the UK, Australia and Spain, but they were also

motivated in other subjects in Sweden because the collaborative student-centred

approach was shared by teachers. Here and in the UK the teacher was complying with

the official curriculum, whereas in Australia and Spain they were teaching againstthe

curriculum. Regarding musical repertoires, both in Sweden and the UK the teachers

incorporated the students preferred musical styles; the Spanish teacher allowed his

students choose among a proposed selection of styles, and the Australian teacher

acknowledged the musical skills developed informally through exposure to their

cultures. The common issues seemed not to be, however, compliance with an official

curriculum or musical repertoire, but rather that:

the four teachers were hearing their students, both listening what they said ortrying to interpret their body language;

the four teachers had built asubject narrative that was eventually accepted by thestudents;

the four teachers designed meaningful learning experiences that generatedintrinsic motivation through musical team work, and learning agency; and

the four teachers displayed clarity and consistency of classroom management,which at the same time facilitated students self regulation of behaviour.

CONCLUSIONS

The contexts and cultural frameworks presented here are diverse and complex. The

commonality is that these teachers are communicating and engaging students in

learning through music experience. So what is it that we can conclude about how

teachers successfully address learner/cultural inclusivity in musical learning?

Through a comparative analysis of data it is evident that the values and strategies held

and employed by the teachers shape subject narrative. There is a patent awareness by

each of these teachers of the embodied aspects of music and how to use draw upon

these qualities of music experience to engage students in shared learning environment


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where music is meaningful and expressive. Whilst in each location the subject

narratives were different, the students, the school and the community accepted all.

Each teacher recognized the power of music to connect them with students and the

wider community, which were often culturally diverse. The teachers recognized both

the inherent capacity for music activity to engage when it is relevant and reverent to

the community and the capacity for music experience to serve as a common ground

between cultures and community values. This kind of common ground is not an

assumed and colonial one, which is often the case with music experience, but one that

is ethically engaged with the community in a genuine relationship. It places the

communities diverse values within a syncretic framework of music making rather

than a colonial one.

The teachers relationship with students was different and extreme ranging from the

kind of discipline of the Spanish teacher/conductor to the more relaxed relationship of

the Australian and Swedish teachers. What was common was the clarity and

consistence in a musical management of the classroom. Again teachers recognized the

inherent properties of ensemble music making to organize and focus experience. The

teachers also recognized the importance of social meaning to students as a learning

process.

What is most apparent in this comparison is the teachers ability to design learning

experiences that recognize intrinsic motivation and agency. These qualities of

teaching practice in each case facilitated an extremely productive, meaningful and

focused music experience and forged a relationship between student and teachers of

respect and humanity. We must also remember here that these students are from

backgrounds where this kind of engagement, behavior and experience of success are

uncommon. It is this recognition of humanity and the inherent qualities of these kinds

of musical activity, which are our most important findings. The teachers in this study

demonstrated the ability to forge a consonant interpretation of students verbal,

physical and emotional expression and simultaneously incorporated this into their

teaching practice and experience design. What we see here is practice examples of

philosopher Martin Bubers concept of inclusion relationship, which he describes as

taking a student into a selection of your life as a musician/ music teacher, first

recognizing the others humanity (Buber, 1969).


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When we interpret Bubers description of inclusion which he reserved as the

particular relationship between teacher and student as opposed to an I Thou

relationship which is equal and reciprocal we can see how these teachers have done

just this they have presented themselves as human through their musical practice and

recognized the humanity of the other by taking them into the selection of their

musical life as a teacher. This relationship is clearly demonstrated by these teachers

and the successful nature of students engagement in these contexts is evident in the

students music production and their behavior and respect for the teacher.

What these teachers were trying to achieve in their classrooms was to initiate students

into a musical discourse. One where the focus is upon meaningful music making. In

most cases the National and state curricula had been ignored or backgrounded and

replaced by a focus on inclusive social and cultural health and well being objectives.

Yet in doing so the teachers exceeded expectations of institutional guidelines so there

was no loss of quality of music learning with this shift of focus. In each case the

music making reflected the music that the communities valued. This served to connect

the school with the community and the community with the school. Most importantly

it reinforced the students place within those communities and affirmed their sense of

belonging. When we consider that these cases represent students where social

exclusion is common then the value of this approach presents an opportunity for

transferable effect.

Inclusion in each classroom differed with the musical style/genre and community of

practice. In Spain the wind band tradition presented an opportunity to organise and

express popular music using Orff instruments in a symphonic social organization. In

the UK composition encouraged expression by students and collaborative activity

projected social and cultural meaning. In Sweden and Australia similarly the

organization frameworks of Rock bands composing and doing cover versions

combined with the presentational outcomes of performance created pedagogy of

collaborative creative learning and personal expression. At the core of these

pedagogies of inclusion is the recognition that when we engage in music making

collaboratively then the stylistic procedures for making that music provide real

world approaches to making expressive music. The style shapes the pedagogy. The

teacher recognises this and recognises the students intrinsic engagement with this


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activity and this music. Primarily what we have learned from this is the importance of

a music teachers ability to recognise the potential for intrinsic engagement presented

by musical activity and more importantly match this activity to what the students and

their community value as music.

There were a number of challenges faced by researchers in this project not the least

being the separation of contexts in time zones and physical locations. Whilst we

began with an analytical framework based around agreed terms in English that would

form the basis of our analysis (e.g. pedagogy, classroom discourse, interaction), what

occurred was quite different interpretations of those terms once applied to data. In this

kind of international research we need to be aware that language carries with it

inherent assumptions and that even between the English interpretations these

assumptions were different. When the ideas are translated the concepts also present a

range of interpretations. Whilst this appears to make our task of comparison more

difficult and perhaps less congruent it served as a reminder that we do take words like

pedagogy for granted. Dictionary definitions vary. One definition describes the

word as the science of teaching yet the kind of interpretation presented by these

studies might more accurately be described as the art of teaching.

What is a positive outcome from this discussion is that whilst interpretations and

definitions will grow and change within a single context and across contexts these

ideas will carry different assumptions and meanings, this provides us with an

opportunity to re assess what these words mean and how they might be interpreted in

practice. In this research it has provided negative case analysis and a reminder that we

need to simply be looking at the teacher student relationship in the context of music

making and examine the behaviour within that context refereeing to the communities

values systems.

This research also provides multiple lenses upon that phenomenon from extremely

diverse contexts yet the commonality of teachers making music with a community of

learners in an inclusive way was discernable. The principle commonality and most

cogent insight being the ability for those teachers to recognise the intrinsic qualities of

music making experience that engage students and that their relationship with


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students needs to first recognising theirs humanity and call upon embodied

understanding of their own musical experience to enter into this relationship.

FINAL REFLECTIONS

We recognize that to move towards the creation of a critical framework for

pedagogies of inclusion this research advances the following commonalities.

Identifies researchers, teachers, learners and all those involved in and out ofschool as a community of learners.

Identifies common features of particular forms of pedagogy, learningdiscourse and classroom interaction.

Identifies comparative research as a means of making the culturally strangefamiliar.

This has been and continues to be a vibrant and exciting project for us as researchers.

It challenges our own research practice and questions underlying assumptions about

that practice. As researchers who are also engaged with the training of music teachers,

we are also conscious of the importance of these insights as we consider what the

lessons are that need to be learned by the next generation of music teachers. We also

need to ponder the question of whether teachers who can ustilise pedagogies of

inclusion are born or educated into these ways of teaching? In facing the multiplicity

of ways in which learners musical experiences are shaped - not just by our own

music classroom environments and the decisions we make as teachers, but also by the

school values, local communities, national policies and political control - the need for

developing inclusive pedagogies which are most relevant, and most effective in

promoting musical learning, is an imperative. Against the background and interplay of

our own classroom (and cultural) contexts at the level of system, school and

classrooms, policy, politics and practice, we need to acknowledge what we can learn

from pedagogies compared across cultures in order to illuminate and understand our

existing practices. It is teachers who, in the end, will change the world of the

classroom by understanding it. Jean Rudduck (1937-2007)


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